Financial Literacy in Italy: What works among millennials most?

Nowadays, financial literacy is one of the most important skills that can be acquired by a tech-savvy millennial. In order to understand what format of financial education works best for millennials, we set up an experiment that involved implementing a financial education program called “Futuro Sicuro” on a sample of 650 high school students in Italy. The program allowed us to gather data from two treatments at the class level, namely 1) a theoretical, rule-of-thumb-based financial education program with the presence of a financial advisor, and 2) a digitized financial education program using web-based applications based on the learn-by-playing rule. The two treatments were associated with different costs but showed similar effects: three weeks after their conclusion, we find that the courses did increase actual financial knowledge and the results also aligned with participants’ realistic assessments of their own financial skills. A follow-up study also reveals the persistence of these effects three months later for the first treatment (i.e. the traditional course).